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"There is nothing new in a set of Government policies that looks to encourage individuals and voluntary groups to be enabled, to be engaged within our community, to care for one another.

"The Church of England knows all about volunteering. More people do unpaid work for church groups than any other organisation. Churchgoers contribute 23.2 million hours' voluntary service each month in their local communities.

"The Church of England alone provides activities outside church worship in the local community for over half a million children and young people aged under 16 years, and 38,000 young people aged 16 to 25 years. Over 136,000 volunteers run activity groups for young people which are sponsored by the Church of England."

The Church understands the importance of volunteering, but we must not forget that the state "has responsibilities too", he said.

"There is a reason we pay our taxes. Whilst it is easy to pretend that much of our hard-earned cash goes to fund expense-fiddling MPs, disreputable casino-style banks or mad politically correct quangos for do-gooders – actually we should expect the state to run and fund strong public services, with our money.

"How to raise that money is another question. I am not an economist, and I am not a politician, but to cut investment to vital public services, and to withdraw investment from communities, is madness.

"You do not escape an economic downturn by cutting investment and by squashing aspirations."

(Part of Archbishop John Sentamu's response to the Spending Review – more of it here)

I have been rightly chastised by a good friend more than once, over many years, for daring to suggest that she read Kingsway paperbacks! Not that I or she has anything against publisher, pbk format or the popular theology usually packaged in said books! But she reads serious theology, and so now if either of us want to wind the other up about our intellectual exploits or lack thereof, the most effective term of affectionate ridicule usually includes the Kingsway pbk!

So! Just to avoid such a literary insult flying in this direction any time soon, I wish to announce the purchase of some serious theology. David Kelsey's two volume magnum opus, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox0 2010) [1496 pages!] is the culmination of a lifetime's wisdom, reflection, theological exploration and Christian thinking. A systematics from the perspective of Christian Anthropology is so overdue I suppose some of us wondered if it might ever appear – assuming any of us thought it a valid or viable theological proposal in the first place. But because the nature of the human being, and the relation of humanity to God, and the meaning of humanity created in the image of God, are deep questions that go to the vital centre of human thought, experience and existence, such a theology is now an essential and humanising task. Christian theology now, at this stage in human history, has critically important things to say about human existence, the human future and the future of the world.

A faith tradition that expresses an understanding of God as a Triune communion of self-giving creative love, and tells the story of that love as bringing all else into existence, and becoming incarnate in human form to enter the created and finite  order of time and sin and death, and triumphs not through power but through redemptive passionate love, is a faith tradition which must inevitably hold, not only an exalted and holy view of God, but a high and sacred view of human dignity, worth and personality. In other words, a systematics that begins with the question "What are human beings that you care for them?", is one that will approach familiar questions from an unfamiliar angle, will take seriously the relationality of God and the human creature, and will bring the Love of God to bear upon the purpose of human existence within the entirety of the divine purpose for the created order. In a world hell bent on its own exhaustion, such a theological corrective is now a necessary and urgent note in the message of a Gospel whose ultimate purpose is the renewal of a creation which, more than he could ever have known, Paul describes as groaning, awaiting its redemption.

These two big books when they come will be the ever presents on my desk for the winter. To be read deeply and slowly, not uncritically but with a sense that now and again, we are gifted the chance to handle, admire, even to own, someone else's richly textured theological fabric, woven on a long practised loom by a weaver who knows the colours and patterns of theological reflection, faithful to Scripture, and lovingly modelled on a conception of God that is Trinitarian.

Kelsey, along with Frei and Lindbeck, are of course postliberal theologians of "the Yale School". I know that. And I recognise the challenge his theological approach represents to other theological schools and styles, including my own. But one of the golden rules of theological hospitality is the refusal to allow someone's label and reputation to dictate how we receive them. So I look forward to what good hospitality should also and always enable – shared conversation, intellectual friendship, and sufficient courtesy to listen at least twice as much as we speak. Now and again I'll report on the conversation.

As the Church seeks to adopt a more humble, receptive, listening and thus persuasive stance over and against the surrounding world, there are a number of strategies suggested by those Halik engages in conversation throughout his book. Here are just three from Paul, Von Balthasar and Thomas Merton:

The way of paradox – "great things are revealed in small things; God's wisdom is revealed in human foolishness; God's strength is revealed in human weakness"

The way of humility – the struggle against "that will to power disguised in the mantle of religion that drives one to assert one's own greatness instead of acknowledging that God alone is great…against every ascetical practice which aims not at God but at one;s own perfection, and which is nothing more than spiritual beauty treatment."

The way of Christlike living "What we are asked to do today is not so much to speak about Christ as to let him live in us so that people may find him by feeling how he lives in us".

Paul's point is that God is not limited by our limitations, or boosted by our resourcefulness. Von Balthasar's point is different – the stance of power, of certitude and of self-righteousness negates a Gospel earthed in the humility of God in Christ. And Merton was quite capable of speaking for Christ, as we all are – but the primary speech of Christian existence is the life lived, the evidenced vitality of the living risen Lord in the life of individual and community. 

.d b

Hello – it's now over a week since I posted here. It's has been a difficult week spent in hospital fighting off a very nasty infection that erupted unexpectedly and caused considerable havoc with my pain thresholds! Home now and will recuperate for a week or two before starting back into those activities that we call our normal life.

However Living Wittily is back albeit having to live more gingerly for a wee while, and trying to follow advice along the lines of "be good to yourself". As if such conformist pressure were really necessary. The doctor wouldn't prescribe chocolate covered marzipan though as a substitute for antibiotics – seemed to think the suggestion had no clinical merit. Hmpphh!

Be back again the morn.

Andrew and Margaret call their dog Louis. Well, a clumber spaniel is a dog with a bit of class, and the name has to reflect its status in the canione scheme of things. Mary Oliver's beloved dog is called Percy. Throughout her recent work she's been writing a series of poems not only about Percy, but reflecting on life seen through the less complicated and weary eyes of a dog.

I ask Percy How I should Live My Life

Love, love, love, says Percy.

And run as fast as you can

along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep

Give up your body heat, your beating heart.

Then, trust.

……………………………….

Quite so.

My friends Margaret and Andrew are dog connoisseurs.

They love all dogs, but when it comes to having their own wee dug, it has to be special.

So meet Louis.

Just discovered his legs have springs.

Sofa, bed, chair – whatever is softer than the floor.

No need for heavy theology when you look into a face like that.

A kind of panting alleluia with a puzzled look in the first photo.

And a prayerful and hopeful petition for another of those eucharistic biscuits in the second.

And an excuse for a poem from Mary Oliver about her dog – which I'll post later.

This week I'm at Swanwick where I've been asked to offer the keynote theological address to a gathering of ministers at their refresher course. I've worked on this now for sometime and those of you who read here regularly will know of my current research on kenosis. While kenotic understandings of Christology have had a fairly negative press over the past century, there is something of a revival of interest in kenosis recently. My own interest is in the usefulness of self-emtpying and self-giving as a way of undserstanding what we mean when we talk of the Divine love, or how we interpret the defining statement God is love,in the light of the events of incarnation,cross and resurrection.

If, and I realise it is a rather significant if, but if the love that is the mutual exchange of the three persons of the Trinity is reflected in the obedience and self-giving of Jesus, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, then Kenosis far from being a marginal or unwelcome Christological oddity, may provide a crucial standpoint from which to consider the eternal disposition of the Triune God. The impetus to creation is divine love – creation itself is an act of kenosis, of divine relinquishment of that self-contained existence in which there is nothing other, beyond the life of the Triune God. The Created order, as that to which the love of the Triune God outflows in creative and redemptive gift, further indicates the nature of Divine love as that which enables and allows to exist, that which is other than God. And then not only allows that Creation to persist despite its tragic and marred history, but enters that created history in human form to redeem, reconcile, renew and thus recreate.

Such kenotic love of the Triune God, revealed in history once and for all in the history ofJesus on the cross, but eternally true of God, indicates the intended disposition of those who are in Christ, called to Christlikeness, and called to love one another as God in Christ has loved us. Kenosis is not a Christological novelty, but a clue to the love of the Triune God, and thus a genuine grace and call in Christian spirituality. The call is only possible by grace, is grace enabled, and is a call to graced giving to those others with whom we live and whom we encounter on the journey

That in fairly dense form, is what I hope to explore more fully and practically at the conference. No doubt the feedback will require me to think again – which would be good.

If a hospital is where you go when you need looking after, a place of healing and care, then I suppose I can see where the word hospitality comes from, semantically speaking. I came across the picture of the three angels by Marc Chagall again yesterday while looking for something else. This Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah is at once comical and mystical, poignant and puzzling. But the basic theme and the obvious point of the story is the refusal in Abraham's time to refuse welcome, food and refreshment. Entertaining angels unawares might be a miraculous by product – but the first obligation is welcome, provision and the courtesies of care. Even angels need a place to feel safe and be cared for in the desert.

Ever since I read his Reith lectures, The Persistence of Faith, I have read, admired and learned much from the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. He has recently written a commentary on Genesis in which he suggests that the human being is invested with such dignity and value by God, that to welcome and care for another person is more important than obligations of prayer and personal devotion. The suggestion that God will understand our missing prayers while we serve others is a profoundly counter-intuitive move in the exegesis of this passage. But something similar is happening in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The passers by were either watching out for themselves, or focused on doing their religious duty to God. Both were wrong.

Of course hospitality can take unexpected turns. So the announcement of a baby for the octogenarian Sarah is one of those great literary moments of poignant comedy. Sarah laughed. Now mocking the words of a guest is a serious breach of the courtesies of hospitality. But be fair. It did sound far fetched. And so this story lies at the pivotal moment of Jewish history when the promise to Abraham would be fulfilled and would depend on welcome given, food provided, and the courtesy of care to unknown guests.

I am left wondering about the way we live our lives, and whether we live with a responsibility to those who touch our lives, and whether friendship and welcome, trust and provision, care and courtesy, can survive the legitimation of selfishness that lies at the heart of the discourse of recession. Used often enough, and with the persuasive authority of media reported discourse, words like hard choices, severe cuts, reduced costs of welfare provision, are normalised, and the unthinkable becomes thinkable because it is reiterated till we inwardly accede to its inevitability. But not so. Not if this story still has currency as human wisdom and divine revelation.

The care for each other, the looking out for the vulnerable, the necessary championing of compassion as the default response of a civilised society, would be one way of practising hospitality as a social virtue and even as a political value. Wonder if the church of Jesus might have a think about what it might mean to embody welcome, inclusion, the courtesy of care, and like hospitals be places where healing and being looked after are more important than anything else. Back to this word missional again – still don't like it. I think to embody the hospitality of God, to entertain others and discover angels, might make us think again about what is possible for God. Sarah laughed – I don't blame her. Sometimes angels say ludicrous things – like at the Annunciation to Mary, and Jesus birth to shepherds - and at an empty tomb to another Mary. And isn't it interesting that some of the most moving post resurrection stories are about hospitality – Jesus cooking breakfast, and breaking bread before bed time…..

Only when God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed.

Each of us is loved.

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful that to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.

(Benedict XVI from the inauguration Mass as Pope on April 24, 2005)

"The Sermon on the Mount never was, is not, and never can be a private affair. Jesus spoke to all who would hear him….The Christian community is taken to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in the inbreaking messianic time. Therefore, it is sent into all areas of public life to witness to the promise, as well as to Jesus' claim to all his Father's creatures. There are no longer autonomies in the political, social, economic, cultural, national, and international spheres that at least would not have to be irritated by the gospel. The exposition of the Sermon on the Mount in terms of a private affair is the reaction of an Enlightenment tolerance. It is actually a rejection of the gospel as God's reaching out for his world."

Ernst Kasemann, On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene, (Page 131)

Not much comment needed – except, how about irritability as a key competence of a Christian community being faithful to the Gospel and engaging with our culture…..hmmmm?